


NINETY MINUTES

by Soquilii9



Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 17:21:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16100264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soquilii9/pseuds/Soquilii9
Summary: Loosely based on The Top Hat Job and The Experimental JobEliot Spencer apparently sleeps only ninety minutes in a twenty-four hour period.Why?Dedicated to HonestBee





	NINETY MINUTES

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HonestBee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonestBee/gifts).



 

He lied to Sophie.  Flat out lied.  To her face.  He even lied to himself.  Hell, you bury stuff deep enough, it's damned hard to access it - whether in the ground _or_ in the heart.

*** * ***

The target for this job was Lillian Foods.  Salmonella bacteria had been found in a shipment of frozen dinners.  According to their client, Dr. Jamison, the entire frozen food division was contaminated.  The Vice President, Erik Casten, did a cost-benefit analysis of the problem and found it would be cheaper to pay off any lawsuit than to pull the bad products off the shelves.  It even estimated how many deaths would result.   Nate had promised Dr. Jameson he wouldn’t let that happen.

The initial recon of the place had been a disaster; fighting off a pack of ex-spooks, however satisfying, was never fun.  They knew what they were doing.  He now sat with an ice pack on a bruised arm, listening to Hardison and Nate arguing.  Who knew food patents were guarded better than defense contractors?  So now they were back to planning.

Hardison, as usual, was off and running with his commentary in front of the screens.  'Lillian Foods is the third-largest food company in the world.  Last year, made $12 billion.  This is the vice president of the frozen-Foods division, Erik Casten.  Erik with a _k_ , Casten with a _c_.'

'How is that relevant?' Nate had asked.

Parker piped up with her usual not-really-relevant trivia.  ‘ _Oh_.  Eric with a _c_ \- nice and _friendly_.  Erik with a _k_ – _evil!_ ’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Sophie said, trying to sound interested and failing.

‘ _Everybody_ knows that,’ Parker stated emphatically.

‘According to Dr. Jameson, Erik with a _k_ is trying to cover up salmonella found in the frozen dinners so his division doesn't have to pay out for that recall,’ Hardison said, trying to get them all back on track.

‘That's why I grow my own food,’ Eliot had interjected.

Sophie seemed amazed.  ‘How do you find the _time_?’

‘You _make_ time.  I only sleep ninety minutes a day.’

And that was it.  That was the lie.  He didn’t sleep ninety minutes a day to make time for a damn thing.  He slept an average of an hour and a half out of twenty-four because despite pills, booze and exhaustion, it was _all he could manage._

*** * ***

Some guys coming back from a war, since the early '80s anyway, sought help for PTSD and other stress disorders after their tours of duty.  The lucky ones - or maybe it was just the stronger ones - went back home and took up their lives again, or either built on their experiences and moved forward.  Some stayed static and just went through the motions.  Quite a few of the unluckier ones ended up living in cardboard boxes on the streets.  A lot of them ended up dead.

A rare few were highly sought after:  those who had served in the military in several capacities, in the Green Berets, or as Black Ops.  Once Eliot was honorably discharged, he found himself tapped for a transition into mercenary work; several private military companies relentlessly recruited him.  Once in, the jobs got harder – and messier.  He crossed the line into wetwork. 

Once Moreau got his hands on him, his downward spiral began in earnest.  Ghosts began to rise up in the night.  Voices plagued him.  Working alone as he did, there was no one to buddy up with like there had been in his unit.  All he had was the job and a hell of a lot of money.  All he could do was bottle it all up until the next job, no matter how distasteful or horrific it might turn out to be.  Eliot not only did the job, he _became_ the job.

Moreau had been impressed by Eliot and had sent him on one assignment after another as his list of enemies, both real and imagined, lengthened.  The workload increased; his downtime lessened.  When he did sleep, nightmares continued to plague him.  A short period of REM sleep had to suffice; after that there was no rest as he tossed and turned.  He heard the voices of those he had assassinated; he saw their faces.

_Eliot: What do you want to know?  Names? Dates?  Locations?  You want to know what food was on their breath?_

_Their eyes – what color their eyes were?  You want to know the last words they spoke?  You want to know_

_which ones deserved it?  Or, better yet, the ones that didn't?  Do you want to know which ones begged?_

_Do you know why I remember these things?_

_Interrogator: I don't know._

_Eliot: You don't know?  'Cause I can't forget._

 

He began training his body to make do with that hour and a half.  He began to prefer a good, hard physical fight during daylight hours over phantoms in his head at night.

*** * ***

Now, years later, working with a team and having gone straight, he might have managed a restful night’s sleep – in fact he tried it a few times.  The ghosts remained.  The nightmares were still there.  The voices, the smells, the screams, the coppery sheen of blood splattered on a concrete floor... there was no respite.  If he slept only briefly past the time to which his body had become accustomed, the phantoms rose up and came after him.  Infuriated, he threw the covers from his bed and paced the floor.  Anything that came to hand was shattered to pieces when he threw it across the room.  Rough patches on the walls indicated where his fists had punched through.

He realized he had to learn to use that anger somehow; channel it; tame it.  To this end, he kept busy.  In the dark of the night while half the world was sleeping, he would be working on the team’s projects, making signage; sharpening knives; charging tools; practicing martial arts; working the heavy bag or tending his garden.  Growing his own food then turning it into mouth-watering dishes tapped into his creativity, keeping him from falling all the way down. 

So yes, he had lied to Sophie. 

Lying to her was better than explaining exactly why he didn’t sleep more than ninety minutes a day.

 

The End


End file.
